More than likely, a US collapse will have direct and balkanizing effects not only on the US but also on the weak Canadian confederacy, tied economically to the hip of the US economic might or there lack of, and to the civil war torn Mexican giant.

As such, from what was originally four states: Canada, USA, Mexico and Cuba, as well as the dozen or so small island statelits of the north Caribbean, will form thirteen new entities, separated politically and economically. We will now review each and everyone of these, starting from the West and moving to the East.

Republic of AlaskaOil rich Alaska, separated from America and never fully part of the mainland culture, will quickly split off. It will rely primarily on its oil wealth, opening up many new fields that are presently closed to it by the US federal government. More than likely, Canada’s Yukon will also join it in a new state on the edge of human civilization.

Lacking the military power to protect themselves, especially from neighbors like the People’s Democratic Republic of Western North America, the ROA will be forced to seek protection from other powers. The logical and cultra-religious choice will be Russia. Thus the ROA will be firmly in the Russian sphere.

Kingdom of HawaiiHawaii never joined the United States willingly, but was forcibly annexed. To that end, the local population has always desired independence. With large Chinese and Japanese populations backing them, more then likely Hawaii will declare independence and reinstate its monarchy. This will cost the US its main Pacific ports, so that for Hawaii to maintain independence, it will be forced to seek protection from either China or Japan. The question becomes, under whose shadow will they fall. There will be an intense power politics between China, Japan, Australia and the PDRWNA.

People’s Democratic Republic of Western North America (PDRWNA)The nation will encompass a block of territories sharing economic and socialist political as well as cultural ties. This will more than likely include Central and Northern California, most of Nevada, Washington and Oregon states, as well as British Columbia and the NW Territories.Economically, as well as politically, these areas will continue their march into a benign, progressive pseudo Marxist dictatorship of green politics and police state control.

As one of the most powerful of the successor states of the USA, they will attempt to dominate their weaker neighbors, specifically the New Mormon Zion Kingdom and the Lakota Tribal Confederation. They will also have continuous border issues with the Republica Del Norta, to its south and will have continued problems with the rump USA/Canadian Union.

Republica Del NorteForming the northern two thirds of Mexico, united with the US’ southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, the hard socialist police state will be populated primarily by Mexicans. Blacks and Asians will be expelled or ethnically cleared to its northern neighbors. Whites will either also flee or be absorbed.

The nation will be relatively poor, though quiet, as the government will deal with the gangs, mafia and disturbances with extreme brutality. Oil will be the primary generator of GDP and will be mostly stolen by the ruling elites.

Soviet Zapatista UnionThe hard core Indian Marxists, in the southern third of the poverty stricken south of Mexico, will win their twenty years war of independence with Mexico City. Having reclaimed the much more valuable US Southwest, Mexico will cut loose its southern headache. The hard core Marxists state will join a growing coalition of other hard core, dirt poor Latin American Marxists.

New Mormon Zion KingdomTaking advantage of the balkanizing North America, the Mormons will form their own theocratic kingdom, a theocracy of sorts, with the absolute rule by their church and its top prophets. All other faiths will be sent scurrying out of the kingdom. The kingdom will be forced to play all its major neighbors off on each other, in order to stay sovereign. That and its geographic remoteness will aid its sovereignty.

Lakota Tribal ConfederationCovering the ancestral lands, this traditional but libertarian loose confederation of Indian clans and whites who share their culture, has already declared its independence, making it official in 2008. True, at present the US ignores them and their claims, when the collapse comes, there will be no ignoring the reality on the ground. Whether the nation will be able to survive in the long run, is doubtful, as it lacks a strong industrial base or a potential for a strong military. If it is not skillful at playing off its neighbors, its stay in the history of nations will be short.

Republic of TexasROT, already with well over 36% of the population demanding independence, is already on the brink of becoming a reality. The nation of 26 million, will have one of the strongest economies and militaries in the world and its loss will be the final blow that will splinter the rest of the union of the US. ROT, on its way out, will reclaim its historic territories of Oklahoma. Texas will become the leader of technology industry in the successor states and will be the fifth largest oil producer and one of the largest producers of farm goods and meat animals.As a nation, ROT will find itself closely allied to the Confederate States of America (CSA) and at with border skirmishes at best and war at worst with Republica Del Norte. Alliance with the CSA should help it defend itself from the rump US/Canada.

Confederate States of AmericaIt was always said that the South shall rise again, and this will be its moment. Culturally and politically distinct from their northern overlords, the CSA has been a nation occupied for 145 years. This time around, no longer dependent on cotton and farm goods, and having a large industrial base, the Confederacy, minus Texas and the Florida Keyes but with the states of Maryland, Kansas, Kentucky and Missouri, and allied to Texas, it will easily be able to withhold the weakened and splintered rump US/Canada.

As a government, it will be a weak federal organ, closer to the original American constitution. It will reach out to the EU for further trade and assistance. Russia will also see fit to aid and trade with the splinter state.

Cuban CommonwealthThe post Castro/Raul Cuba will be an expansionist power. With a military trained by Russia and a splintering America to the north, Cuba will take the opportunity to bring the various small island nations of the northern/central Caribbean into borders. At the same time, having effectively and completely colonized the Florida Keyes, Cuba will move to annex the territory. Since this will cause problems to the CSA, Cuba will find close allies in the form of the rump US/Canada and that of Republica Del Norta.

New England CommonwealthConsisting of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and much of upstate New York, as well as Novo Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward’s Island. These economies and societies are much closer tied to each other than to their present nations. They will succeed because the Rump US/Canada will be to weak to wage war on them without being threatened by their allies, the CSA and ROT. They will also seek close economic support with Quebec and the EU, as well as defense pacts.

Republic of QuebecAs the French have always chaffed under English rule, they will take the opportunity to break out and will seek a close relationship with the EU and with the neighboring New England Commonwealth, relying on both for defense from the ever aggressive Rump USA/Canadian police state. Quebec may even petition to join the EU.

US Federal Government + Canada (Rump USA/Canada)The remains of America will move quickly to absorb the weakened but oil rich rump Canada. Still reeling from its territorial losses, Canada will offer little resistance. As a nation, the USA/Canada will be a strict centralized police state, with military governors ruling over the elected state governors and control of population movement, under war powers acts, on the level of the former East Germany.

Its economy will still be strong but it will be a shadow, as will its military, of its former self. As such, it will be locked in territorial disputes with all of its neighbors and will be viewed as a rogue state by larger countries, such as the EU, Russia, Japan, China and so on.

Over all, the North American continent will be one of a sea of storms, with a few relative quiet spots, such as the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Alaska, though even those will be hard pressed to avoid the various territorial wars that will rage for decades until the survivors of the balkanization grow tired of fighting and comfortable in their own new borders.

As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

In Moscow, Igor Panarin's Forecasts Are All the Rage; America 'Disintegrates' in 2010

MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin's ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country's top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin's predictions. "Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people," says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin's theories don't hold water.

Mr. Panarin's résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are "classified."

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

"When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. "They didn't believe me."

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia's biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

The article prompted a question about the White House's reaction to Prof. Panarin's forecast at a December news conference. "I'll have to decline to comment," spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino's response was significant. "The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully," he says.

The professor says he's convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union -- 15 years beforehand. "When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him," says Prof. Panarin.